Welcome to the Herding Fish Blog!

Last year I trained as a coach with Relational Dynamics 1st who focus on creative, cultural and non-profit settings. Their training is something I’d wanted to do for some time, and because it shifted online in 2020, it slotted nicely into the reality of my Fibromyalgia energy limitations. In fact, not having to travel for anything over the past year has been a revelation for me, but that’s a story for another day.

Since I’ve been freelancing, I’ve occasionally delivered artist development training. This mainly used my experience in marketing and project planning to help practitioners present themselves effectively online. While doing that, I noticed how the multiple layers and strands and possibilities of creative practice sometimes cloud our ability to take decisive action and more forward. I realised I want to help people occupy the core of their creative work more fully. So they can be more effective both in how they do that work and how they communicate the work once it’s under way.

Coaching offers techniques that centre the individual within their own journey, and brings together ideas I’ve been working with for many years. I’m excited to begin and to use this space to share ideas as the exploration unfolds. The Herding Fish blog will explore how coaching can help artists and makers build a thriving practice. I think of creative practice through a person-centred model with phases of creativity, productivity and marketing. This blog explores these four themes: Resilience, Creativity, Productivity and Marketing and offers insights into the coaching process.